


Let me kiss you

by becka



Category: BBC Radio 1 RPF, One Direction (Band)
Genre: Developing Relationship, First Kiss, Homecoming, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-08
Updated: 2018-08-08
Packaged: 2019-06-23 22:29:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15616407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/becka/pseuds/becka
Summary: Harry knocks, and the dogs start up barking inside, and it’s so normal and nice it feels like coming home more than going to his own house did.





	Let me kiss you

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the occasion of Nick’s last breakfast show/Nick’s birthday/my birthday/Nick instaing Harry the ~model/general overabundance of feelings.

He’s buzzing with anticipation by the time he gets to Nick’s door. He’s washed his hair and he’s wearing ridiculous trousers Nick will love, and they’ve got a whole day to spend together. He knocks, and the dogs start up barking inside, and it’s so normal and nice it feels like coming home more than going to his own house did. And then Nick opens the door and grins, and Harry’s chest fills up with warmth.

“Well, hello, Harold,” Nick says, eying him up and down as he comes through the door, dogs at his ankles inspecting his shoes and nearly tripping him as he pulls Nick into a hug. Harry remembers when Nick seemed so tall, but now they’re of a height, and their faces are perfectly lined up when he pulls back, and he lets his mouth be soft and open, available for the kiss he knows is coming. But Nick kisses him on the cheek instead, and then he’s farther away, and Harry has to shuffle around hiding his disappointment. He wanted today to be just like always, and Nick chats on as though it is, like he doesn’t know Harry’s lips have been left waiting.

They go to the park, eventually, after Nick faffs about for ages wondering whether they should take the dogs, or whether they might want to go someplace without a patio for lunch after. Eventually he lets the dogs out in the garden while they drink coffee in the kitchen, and then it’s just the two of them walking up the road, the sun hot on the back of Harry’s neck where his cap does no good. He meanders on the pavement, his elbow jostling Nick’s side, but Nick doesn’t react except a fond roll of his eyes. It’s not the day Harry expected, where they snog on the sofa for a bit before anything else.

In the park, Harry perches on a dead tree, and Nick mimes photographing him for a bit before he does it for real, calling out things that might be poses and telling him what good face he’s giving, so that Harry feels ridiculous and glad. Nick looks up at him, laughing behind his phone. "Yes, darling, just like that. So fashion!" Harry shifts his feet against the tree and holds back his smile.

"Can I post this later?" Nick asks, eyes only on the screen now, and Harry likes that less, Nick looking away from him, looking at the image of him when he's right here, real and off-kilter and wanting.

"If you like," says Harry, and his voice must be strange because Nick frowns and tilts his head in a quizzical way.

"I don't have to."

"No. I don't mind. I don't." He shakes his head. "Why wouldn't you kiss me?"

Nick stands up and brushes himself off. He comes over and presses a smacking kiss to the top of Harry's cap. "I don't understand wearing wool in this weather."

"It's just a hat. Why wouldn't you kiss me for real?" There's a whine in his voice he wants to erase, but it's out there now, vaguely pleading.

"We don't have to be that kind of friends, do we?" There’s a bit of pleading in Nick’s voice too.

Harry stands up. They're very close to each other, and there's no one else in sight, and Harry would just kiss him if it didn't sound like Nick doesn't want that. "We have been. Did something change?"

"Everything's changing."

"Okay." For the first time in years, Harry feels awkward in Nick's personal space. He takes a step sideways, pretends to prune a bit of bark from his trousers.

Nick puts his sunglasses back on, and his mouth is thin and sad, and Harry doesn't understand or even know where to start. They walk back through the park, Nick plotting out the rest of the day, asking Harry questions he can answer without thinking. "It's too hot to hold hands, isn't it?" Nick says after a while. He's looking at a couple up the path, and Harry follows his eyes. Their arms swing between them, fingers interlocked.

"You'd have to really want to," Harry replies. He's not much for handholding, generally, because all public displays of affection are a breeding ground for hysterical rumour, but he feels envious of the couple up the path, the unthinking ease of them, the way their hands hang evenly between them, no one tugging away. He wants to say something else, bring the conversation back round to Nick not kissing him because it feels raw and unfinished. But he doesn’t.

They have lunch in a restaurant with loud but effective air con, repeating themselves back and forth across the table until all they can do is laugh and gesture expansively. The heat outside is like a slap in the face, but the street is quieter than indoors, and Harry follows Nick home because the only alternative is to leave and he doesn’t want to, even though he feels itchy and awkward the longer he doesn’t say anything. The dogs don’t get up to meet them this time, sprawled on the living room floor as they pass through to the kitchen.

Nick passes him a water bottle from the fridge, and Harry takes off his cap to roll it across his forehead, the vague throb at his temples. Nick comes close enough to ruffle his hair, leaves his hand at the crown of Harry’s head for one spare moment so that Harry looks him straight in the eye. “I really wanted to kiss you,” he spills out.

Nick looks at his mouth and doesn’t move his hand. “It’s nice for you that I’m always here, isn’t it?” he asks.

Harry bites his lip. “Yeah. I thought it was nice for you too though. Being here. With me. When I’m here.”

“There’s a lot of time when you’re not here though, popstar.” His hand slides down to cup the back of Harry’s neck, and Harry thinks he must be sunburned there because Nick’s fingers make his skin ache.

“That’s less nice,” Harry says. “But I’m here for a while now.”

“So you’ll turn up at my door wanting to kiss me once a week instead of a couple of times a year?”

“It’s not like that, is it?” Harry thinks that if Nick’s really upset with him, he’ll step back, but instead his thumb is tracing the curve of Harry’s ear, and his expression is so soft Harry can barely keep from leaning into him.

“It’s a bit like that,” Nick says. “I’m just here.”

“You’re not just here. You’re my favourite part of me being here. I didn’t ever mean to, like, not make that clear.” He chews the inside of his lip, scraping his teeth back and forth as Nick watches. Harry expects him to say something, but when he doesn’t, Harry adds, “I want to kiss you all the time. I thought you knew.”

“Mates kissing though. Not a real thing. You and Camille, that was a real thing. It wasn’t just mates kissing.”

“But that’s over,” Harry protests. “It wasn’t meant to be for life. It was just how it happened.” His heart is beating too hard, like everything inside him is trembling with its rhythm. “We could be a real thing. I just didn’t think… I don’t know. I didn’t think.”

“Could we?”

Harry puts a hand on Nick’s shoulder, tentative. “Yeah. Please, yeah.”

He keeps his eyes open long enough to see Nick believe it, and then he closes them before Nick kisses him. Their mouths open, soft and slow and warm, and it’s every bit like always and a little bit different too. Maybe there’s a really good reason coming to Nick’s feels the most like coming home.


End file.
